


Hungarian Dances

by Vanr



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, F/M, Like all the sad, Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2018-03-19 00:57:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3590295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vanr/pseuds/Vanr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roderich's life can be described in music, but only the few memorable things really stick around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hungarian Dances

Roderich’s life is described in music. Of course, since he is a musician, music is his career. Whenever something notable happens in his life, there’ll be music to help him remember.

When he got married to Elizabeta, the last and first time he fell in love. It was a wonderful thing, he is sure, and he does remember some things. The flowers that his neighbor and Elizabeta’s childhood friend, Gilbert, brought his wife. How beautiful she looked in her white dress, her green eyes shining with happiness and love as he lifted up the veil and they kissed. Gilbert’s speech about “loud music playing at late hours when I’m trying to get some damn sleep.” Him continuing with, “hopefully their sex is quieter than that.” His smirking at the horrified looks on the faces of the wedding guests.

But the strongest, most poignant memory is him asking her for the first dance and her saying, “Of course, Roderich.”

He remembers taking her hand, kissing it gallantly, and pulling her over to the dance floor with a smile. She stood, clasped close to his chest, lips smiling and eyes laughing as they wait for the first song.

A piano player pressing the first few notes, before it speeds up and Eliza recognizes the song. 

“You picked Hungarian dances?” she asked, laughing as they spin in each other’s arms, stepping quickly to a dance they both know. Even as the tempo increases and the music crescendos, they keep the time of the music.

Roderich smiles. “I did,” he replies. 

He has to wait a moment before saying more, because it has sped up and he finds himself concentrating until the music seems to stop and slow down. It’s now quiet, and they dance slowly with one another. Eliza is leading him because even if he does knows the song, he’s a bit of a hopeless dancer. He can't believe he hasn't tripped either himself or her yet.

“It reminded me of you,” he tells her, and the smile he receives for that comment is, in what his opinion, makes the whole event worth it.

He also remembers when she left him, although calling it that is hardly fair. Eliza was a strong, beautiful woman, and when they learned she had cancer, they couldn't believe it.

He remembers when the doctors told him, but he doesn’t remember specific details because there had been no music. There was no music in that part of his life. Only painful, soul-numbing silence and hospital visits and smiles and hugs. She'd say, "Don’t worry, I’ll get better. For you, Roderich."

He remembers little about when the doctor said his wife wouldn’t make it. Only flashes of a white jacket.

But he remembers clearly the music he played when he came home. 

The Chopin piece that comes from his fingers is his funeral march. Fingers slowly dance across the piano keys, creating solemn minor chords while tears roll down his face. He stops playing Chopin’s Piano sonata no. 2 in B flat major when his eyes blur so much he can no longer see the piano keys. 

His fingers fall off the keys, and he wants to cry harder and scream and slam his fists down on the piano. He wants to shout at the universe for taking his heart and breaking it. He wants nothing more than to just stop caring and let the world turn on without him.

Instead, he sits up straight and his fingers go back to the keys, and he’s playing Mozart’s Maurerische Trauermusik, but the song still takes him by surprise. He can get only halfway through before he is a teary mess yet again, this time sliding off the piano bench to suffer on the floor.

Then there’s a quiet knocking on his door and even though Roderich isn’t anywhere near fit to see visitors, he opens the door anyway. There is hardly more that could go wrong this day.

His eyes are dull and uncaring when he opens the door and the voice behind it begins talking at once without even noticing. “It’s 2am and you’re still up playing you’re goddamn piano, will you just-”

Roderich’s neighbor blinks and stops himself. He notices Roderich’s red rimmed eyes and his exhausted, darkened face and he stops. “What the hell’s wrong with you?” he asks, insensitively, but Roderich can’t bring himself to care.

“Elizabeta has cancer. Today I learned she isn’t expected to live.” He says this as dispassionately as he can, because maybe if he distances himself he can pretend this doesn’t involve him. He can pretend he was just up practising for a concert, as he usually is when Gilbert comes around to complain. 

“Jesus Christ,” GIlbert mutters, and the expression in his face softens. Not quite noticeable, but still there and still evident. Even if Roderich chooses not to see it.

He does notice when Gilbert pushes roughly past him, entering his apartment without so much as asking.

Roderich would be angry if all was normal. But tonight, he doesn’t care, he just shuts the door and follows Gilbert without a word.

“You got any beer?” Gilbert asks, and when Roderich shakes his head, he sighs. “Damn. what do you have?”

Roderich shakes his head yet again. “Eliza doesn’t-”

“Whipped,” Gilbert accuses with a smile, but he’s gone before Roderich can protest.

Before he can do much else, he’s back with a case of beer that he apparently keeps near the front door of his own apartment for ‘emergencies’. Although, Roderich doesn’t know what kind of emergencies require alcohol consumption.

Tonight he’ll drink and remember. With the help of his neighbor, of course.

That’s where the memories fade out for him. The music ended and the silence began at this point (although he’s sure the alcohol didn’t help).

He remembers later, in the hospital room, Eliza telling him not to be sad when she left. He remembers this because a nurse had a classical CD of violin solos written by various composers playing in the hospital. He knows she only played it because Elizabeta asked. 

He remembers her weak hand grabbing his and her bringing chapped lips to the back of his hand. Her kissing it like he himself had when they were first married and young. Innocent, unknowing of what was to come.

“I love you,” she says to him, voice shaky but still sounding determined and strong, like she always was. It was he, not her, who broke down and began crying, and it was her who whispers comfort to him as he weeps.

He remembers her funeral and the music, the music he himself played for her one last time. Mozart again, but Marche Funebre this time. 

He refuses to speak, believing his song was enough. It was for him, anyway, and when that song was finished, he is supposed to leave.

He doesn’t. She would have hated to see Roderich so angry, so sad, and he knows she wouldn’t have liked him playing this song as their last song.

So, as they lower her casket into the graveyard, his fingers begin dancing over the keyboard, and it’s Hungarian Dance no. 5 once again, and although he can’t help but cry, it makes him feel better.

It feels like a goodbye, and a proper goodbye. A final I’ll miss you and a final I love you. The speed picks up, and he gets fierce as he practically slams the keys of the piano. 

He stops with a triumphant flourish. No one claps at funerals, of course, but Eliza would have clapped for him, had she been there.

And if he tries hard, he can hear her laughter, echoing through the trees and the hills. Echoing, and singing sweet melodies from the strings of his piano.

**Author's Note:**

> Off the cuff drabble type thing. I don't even ship this pairing...


End file.
